death and life

i saw a man buried yesterday.

something like 300 people came to pay their respects. the line of cars spanned the entire distance from the chapel to the burial site. its was really rather beautiful. 

why is it that a life seems most precious after it has been lost. while he lived i barely knew this man, but in his death i wish i had. he was broken just like you and i, but they say he had a "heart of gold." he affected so many people. i cannot remember ever seeing so much grief in one place. 

i could not help thinking about my own legacy. who will remember me? who will weep as my casket is lowered into the ground? i am sure there will be a handsome turnout; i do know a great many people. 

it is odd thinking that the life i live today will have some degree of influence on what is said at my funeral. will the officiators need to lie? will they have enough to say? will i there be a list of grand accomplishments or will they need to fill space with silly stories?

all of this leads to one question: what is really important? situations such as this force us to think about what really matters and how we can live our lives in ways that embrace that. 

perhaps i spend too much time and energy on moving. i am not a busy person, but i feel as though i must always be doing something. i fill the empty spaces in my day compulsively, as if spending time doing nothing at all is time wasted. i think about my future. where will i be in five years? what can i do now to make getting there easier? i become so preoccupied with doing things and getting places that i lose the here and now. 

life, i think, is about laughter. it is about smelling good smells and hearing good sounds. it is about telling silly stories and making funny faces. there is so much more to this existence than books and papers and numbers and scores and blahblahblah. i certainly don't want the preacher at my funeral to mention any of my test scores, even the good ones. why? because thats not what life is about. i do not want to be remembered as a man who was driven, as a man who got things done. i want to be remembered as a man who loved the people around him, a man who had character and strength of heart. what good are test scores compared to that? 

those who survive me should have no doubt in their minds as to what was important to me. if i left today, would they say i was a man of relationships or a man of success? am i a man of material or a man of substance. the things that are important to me ought to be clear. i love my God, i love my fiance, i love my family and i love my friends, but that statement has little meaning if it is not reflected in my actions. if my schedule is dominated by work and school and dollars and cents, how would anyone know what is really in my heart?

so maybe that should be our goal. i think the saying is, "live so that the preacher wont have to lie at your funeral." maybe we should try to find ways to live that show people what we are really about, what matters to us deep down. and if school or success is what really matters to you, than by all means be the best scholar you can be. as for me, i would like to spend a little more time doing nothing with the people i love.